Thrive Center

Blog Articles

Youth

Post

Adolescents and Spirituality: Do Mountaintop Spiritual Experiences Really Make a Difference?

A Thrive Scholars Fellow shares transcendent experiences along with caring adults can stimulate spirituality and virtue development in youth.

Emotions

Post

The Power of Positive Emotions: Pursuing Awe

Awe is a powerful positive emotion. Dr. Susan Mangan explains how pursuing awe can build resilience through difficulty.

Spirituality

Post

Transcendence (Part 2): How Transcendence Can Lead the Way to an Open Heart

Believing in Something Greater Than Ourselves is an integral part of our spiritual health.

Spirituality

Post

Transcendence (Part 1): The Beauty of Transcendence and How it Informs our Spirituality

Our minds are designed to receive loving transcendent experiences. Learn more in this post and try some practices.

Spirituality

Post

What is transcendence?

Spiritual health includes experiencing transcendence.

Post

Take a Breath: How Breath Work Provides a Portal to Our Spiritual Lives

“…then the Lord God formed the human from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life’ and the human became a living being.”  Genesis 2:7 The gospels don’t describe Jesus’ first breath. What they do tell us is that he was born, and that he lived among us. God became flesh and bone, experiencing the pleasures and pains of embodied life. The story of Jesus’ life is also about his sacrifice and the moment when he breathed his last. According to Luke 44:46, “Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into...

Emotions

Post

Growing Forward: Questions to Promote Love and Meaning

If you want to train your brain out of anxiety and/or discover more about yourself, find a trusted friend or small group and work through these questions

Post

Life off Autopilot (Part 2): The Complexities of Activating into Purpose

When we know that finding purpose is so important for our spiritual health and wellbeing, why is it sometimes so hard?

Agility

Post

A Practice: Observing the Body for Understanding

A daily spiritual practice focusing on embodied emotions provides insight into what matters most and informs purpose.

Meaning

Post

Questions to Promote Love and Meaning

Thinking through paths out of anxiety and fear   If it rings true for you that you need to train your brain to tone down anxiety and/or discover more about yourself – your sources of love and mattering, and your purposes – find a trusted friend or loved one or a small group and work through some of these questions together.     Getting in touch with love: What are your fundamental beliefs about being loved–for just who you are? Not what you do, but just who you are now?  Pause. Close your eyes, take 3 slow breaths–imagine God is looking...

Post

Life Off Autopilot (Part 1): The Power of Purpose

What is purpose and why is it important?

Emotions

Post

Want to become more present, healthy, and connected? Pay attention to your body (Part 2)

Our emotions are linked to how we make meaning of our lives, and attending to our embodied emotional selves leads to spiritual health.